Moiety

In December 1848, Richard Baker of Caldwell County, North Carolina, and Josias Baker of Monroe County, Indiana, conveyed a “two-thirds moiety” in 200 acres on the Johns River in Caldwell County to Hugh Stewart, James H. Collet and Samuel Stewart.1

The language of the deed makes it pretty clear they didn’t own the land outright. So exactly what interest in the land did the brothers sell?

A “moiety” in law generally refers to a one-half interest in real estate.2 An entirety in real estate, by contrast, means the whole parcel.3 But the term “moiety” is broader than just a half-interest. The definition of “moiety” notes by way of example that joint tenants — two or more persons who own land by a joint title4 — are “said to hold by moieties.” Used this way, the term refers to any set of roughly equal parts.

So a “two-thirds moiety” would represent two of three equal shares. The deed, then, conveyed Richard’s one-third interest and Josias’ one-third interest. Turns out that their father, Henry Baker, had died in Burke County, North Carolina, in 1806,5 leaving a life estate to his wife Nancy. Nancy died many years later, in 1848,6 well after Caldwell County was created from parts of Burke.7

As genealogists, getting access to original records means we may come across other terms that mean roughly the same thing as moiety. In old records, a demidietas is a “half or moiety.”8 It’s sometimes spelled dimidietas.9 A half-endeal is a moiety.10

To own all rights to the entire 200 acres, the buyers would have had to separately acquire the remaining rights to the land from the owners of the third share — the children of a third brother, John, who had also inherited a one-third interest and who had also died in 1848.11

Or they could ask for partition… but that’s the language of the law for another day.

SOURCES

Caldwell County, North Carolina, Deed Book 2: 147; microfilm C.017.40001; North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh. ↩

Henry Campbell Black, A Dictionary of Law (St. Paul, Minn. : West, 1891), 784, “moiety.” See also John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America and of the Several States of the American Union, rev. 6th ed. (1856); HTML reprint, The Constitution Society (http://www.constitution.org/bouv/bouvier.htm : accessed 2 Jan 2012), “moiety.” ↩

3 Comments

Ok just to clarify here – since we are talking moiety this is going to be found in probate records, right? And we will not see the transaction in deeds until the partition is officially made?

Next question! In this particular example we encounter two separate counties. Will either the probate records (I presume) or the deeds (I hope) refer back to the original documents in the other county?

I’m thinking here about (potentially) similar notations on original mortgages that cite the book/page of the released mortgage. But would it actually reference a mortgage in a different county? I’ve never thought check for this in my own deed research and wonder if you have encountered “cross-county” notations.

(a) It’s just as likely that you’ll see the reference in a deed (as it was in the Baker example) as in probate records, and perhaps more so. Probate records would record the bequest (say, “life estate to wife, remainder to sons” and maybe adding “in equal shares”) but aren’t terribly likely to refer to those equal shares as a “moiety.” A deed conveying only a moiety interest is where you’re really likely to see the term. And, of course, sometimes in court records where the moiety share owners (or those who buy the interest from them) ask for partition.

(b) In some cases, you sure will see a cross-county notation, particularly in later records (where a county was created or county lines changed in the mid-1800s or later). In this particular case, the cross-county notation was cryptic at best. When the mother of these boys died in 1848, the Caldwell County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions appointed son Richard and son-in-law Robert Wakefield as administrators of the estate of Henry Baker, whose will was recorded in Burke County. That was the one and only reference I could find: nothing else in the Caldwell court or probate records and nothing in the Burke court records (Burke wills, probate records and deeds before 1865 are mostly in the “burned” category).

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